Final Kiss
by CrayonCalendar
Summary: Would he ever run out of excuses? Or will it be different this time? She awaits him in the dark... Set 7 or 8 years after the events of Final Fantasy XIII.


A single droplet of water, and another. Raindrops clatter on the metal floor as the platform peeks outside; breaking Hope from his thoughts. "Oh no," he mutters with mock concern.

He casts his head down to the floor as he enters open air and rainwater starts falling on him. The elevator gate opens up, and he carefully hops out of it and into the street. He secures his groceries under an arm before running towards Lightning's home. It is only two blocks away, so he smiles as he runs; crazily anticipating her surprise once she wakes up to a nice, healthy, home-cooked meal.

This was sure to get his point across. The stage their friendship was in right now was full of tension; of timid glances and constant second guessing of the other's motives - or maybe it was just his conclusive imagination playing on him like always.

Even if such a precious friendship won't be the same again, it was better than pretending that things were okay as they were. It took plenty of courage, but finally Hope is making his move.

He wonders whether Snow or Serah had come to pay her a visit, and immediately remembers that one was busy working tonight, and the other wants them to be alone together for as much as possible. Hope twists a sick smile. That Snow, of course he'll only ever thank him if he is successful. How he found out, Hope knew it must have been those daughters of his.

Sudden interrogations always seemed to get the truth out of Hope; if not with words then through body language. Hope chuckles warmly at the resurfacing memory of them, as he battles the unrelenting rain.

A minute or so later, he makes it to her front porch without having to pull up the dampening bags. He drops them and breathes. He then shuffles his pocket for a wallet and subsequently a foreign key.

Opening the door with a long, sharp creak, he throws his wallet and key into one of the paper bags before picking them up again. He walks inside the home just to place them on the nearby kitchen table. Before kicking the door closed, he glances at the lounge, and stops silent at the sight of Lightning.

He can just see her legs; she lies on the nice, fur couch that Serah gave her, facing away from the entrance. To some of his relief, the loudening rain hides the eerie silence of his sudden realisation of her. Hope wonders if she is awake or not.

"Light, are you awake?" he asks as he closes the door.

"Mmm," she grumbles the affirmative. As soon as he hears this, Hope drops whatever task he was about to do and casually walks over to her.

He smiles at the sight. He sees that her eyes are closed and she is relaxed and looking much fuller in colour. Hope knows that she is aware of his presence in front of her, and yet when she opens up her eyes to see him; confirm him - the energy of those aqua blues is still enough to make his heart skip a beat. He quickly finds the pinkette surveying him.

Acting; pulling back his smile, he says, "Feeling any better?"

Lightning's gaze holds for just a bit longer before she lowers her lids again, sighing with exasperation, and answers him. "Yeah, I do... Much better."

Hope smiles sincere now; puffing air out his nose, then remembers and says to her, "Hold on, Light. I'll go grab the thermoscopulator. I'm guessing you haven't pinned in your health yet."

"Thanks," he hears with a squeak of his step, as he walks off to ascend the staircase leading to the higher platform of her large home - to her bedroom.

Soon, he walks past the open door and into the room, and is greet by not only the sight but by the fragrance of the now unoccupied place. Her perfume. He drifts off, as he aimlessly walks towards her nightstand.

It's silly to him. Feeling comfortable, and yet so nervous right now. Here in her home. Lust, he feels that too. Always had for her. But now he feels like he is standing in the twilight of such anguish. There is an inexplicable strength, or possibly illness, swirling in the pit of his stomach. It's a familiar feeling. Like there was a giant's battle on the horizon, set to vigorously test his fate. That kind of feeling.

It makes Hope wonder what would be if he had just been bolder the two months he had seen her since their reunion; since they both came back home.

And in the midst of his divergence into what-could-have-beens, a vibrant fantasy is born. An image that shoots a spark straight to his unit. Following this, a pleasurable buzz radiates from the area of impact - growling and growing in strength - delightfully so, to his horror. This wasn't l'Cie magic.

Hope tries to steel his nerves and freeze over the hysterical, fiery rage - veiled by the thinning layers of his pants' fabric. Nothing good can come of it! He doesn't want to be questioned about the time it took to get a single object. If he continues thinking about her... embracing him and his desires like that, it would very much be the case. Hope fishes through the drawer he had deposited the thermospiculator into the night before, and quickly finds the device.

He turns and hops as he adjusts his pants; hoping to Bhunivelze above, that her eyes aren't as sharp today as he knows were in her better health. He soon starts making his way back down the steps. At sight of her, he's again surprised to see Lightning now sitting up on the couch, facing his direction and looking at the floor; only seconds later glancing at Hope and registering him. He wears a big smile, which brings her own lips in a tug, along with a brow.

The agonising seconds which Hope felt as he approached his friend before him, was almost unbearable enough for him to drop the entire facade. The object in his hand, and the semi-deceitful smile of his face; the two distractions from the beckoning erection in his pants. "H-Here... Just give it a beep."

Lightning hesitates for just a second, before accepting the device from him. Hope knows it's because he had used it on her the night before like it was the most natural thing in the world to do. He inwardly curses himself. She places the sensor on her forehead and the device beeps.

She brings it away from her and bores into the display. "Yep. Getting better," she comments seconds later, having analysed the digits and symbols. "Thanks again." She places it on her coffee table as she twists, pushing her legs down along the couch again. He answers her with a no problem, as he watches her relax.

Resting her eyes, head, neck, and pushing herself further into the soft cushions, Lightning candidly and suddenly moans-yawns in comfort - which is like a Heavy Slash attack to Hope's wavering restrictive walls.

He can't keep fighting his urges! He starts to believe that maybe she truly is oblivious to such lusty feelings radiating off of him. But if she is aware of it, she's playing him like an instrument - like some pet with its favourite worn-out toy, just poking and prodding it until it tears. Light's enjoying this, Hope thinks almost upset, as he's lurching forward from the pain caused by his pants. Luckily enough for him, her eyes are closed and - he isn't staggered quite just yet.

"So what did you buy for me?" she asks deadpan; all of Hope's hormonal anguish considered. Any subject change is a great change right about now. It just wasn't the right time to reveal everything to her. In his mind, his original plan was much better than this development. Finding himself still standing; still equipped with a threatening, albeit concealed weapon, Hope finds the nearby sofa chair and sits down on it to his great relief, before then speaking up.

"I bought your items written on the note on the fridge, and some vegetables. Carrots, banerelly and giffons to be exact," he says with some fondness. There was more to say, but Hope allows a pause just to breathe.

"Okay. That's nice... What are you making?" she urges him on.

"Stew. You are going to love it, Light." Hope mellows. He thinks back to his parents; revisiting his mother, who was a good cook, and whom had one dish that stood out from anything else he'd ever eaten. "It's a special kind of stew. The recipe, I got it off my father. My mom used to make it for me way back when I attended school at Palumpolum. It was the only thing I would eat at some point," Hope snickers at the surfacing memory, "and I would guilt-trip her into making it for me for dinner, for almost every little thing that went wrong for me back then."

She smiles to herself at his generosity, saying, "Well, I guess it will be good. Can't wait." She abruptly coughs, flinching Hope - even with the knowledge it's to be expected considering the virus she is recovering from.

"You alright, Light?" he asks her, wanting a better idea of how exactly she's feeling.

"Yeah, fine," she replies, continuing to clear her throat. Hope is reminded that although Lightning's health is improving, she's still poor enough to be considered sick in bed. Hope almost laughs, knowing it's a good thing he left the lion locked up in its cage.

The urgency to tell her about his true feelings has faded, and without disappointment. He would love nothing more than to cook a meal for her in such a state, and now he can put the task at the fore. He will make his move then; preferably after they both fill their stomachs with what he hopes to be good cooking. Her voice punctures the short silence.

"Your hair is still damp by the way. You should dry yourself a bit," Lightning points out. He puts a hand to his hair, totally forgetting about his own external, miserable state.

"Ah. No, it's fine. I was only out in the rain for a short amount of time, although it was raining buckets... and I'm not dripping wet," anymore - Hope didn't add. Lightning shuffles on her sofa, and now her eyes could see him.

"How long were you out for?" she asks him, seemingly interested in conversation. Looking so pretty to him, he wishes he'll be able to tell her such a fact later this evening. Hope crosses a leg with a huge grin, obliging her.

"Maybe an hour or so. I went out to get a haircut, since it was getting a bit long, but all the local shops were closed... Then I went to buy some of your groceries, and had an idea for dinner so I picked out some ingredients as well," he tells her.

"You went over to your place this afternoon?" she asks.

Hope nods and answers her. "Yeah. Earlier this morning actually. When Serah came over to see you. I returned here before she left, around midday."

"Okay..." she replies. She slowly gets up, now sitting and facing the staircase. Hope tells her, "if there is anything you need, I'll get it for you."

"No, it's fine... Thanks anyway," Lightning says with a small smile, as she slowly gets up and walks towards her staircase. Hope unfolds his legs as she passes him. So much for conversation, he chuckles to himself.

Hope then stands up, and surveying the living area, he walks over towards the kitchen table. He fills the silence; barring the rain, with the crackle of wet paper bags, pulling out and separating the ingredients of his dish with Lightning's own groceries.

Putting her few items away doesn't take as long as Hope thought it'd be, and as soon as he finishes, he looks over at the vegetables, and decides to begin preparing his meal. He lightly slaps his face to pull himself together, and get to task on making the most important dish of his life.

He opens a metal drawer; searching for a particular knife or peeler, and almost doesn't find it as it is hidden underneath other cutlery. Walking around the counter and towards the sink, he grabs the chopping board and places it behind him. He opens the fridge to get the other ingredients and places them alongside his vegetables. As he passes the sink again, he glances into the nearby window's reflection, and is surprised to notice the opening of a rubbish chute; built into the opposite end of the kitchen counter behind him. He soon adjusts the chopping board before it, and sits the carrots down on the wood.

Footsteps can be heard descending the stairs, and as Hope begins peeling away, he calls out behind him when she is in range of seeing him. "Light, I'll start preparing dinner now. It will be done in around an hour's time!" He looks over to her before speaking on, and is quite shocked to feel the force of what he believes to be a towel hit his face.

"Dry up," she says, infuriatingly amused.

Before Hope can respond to this with something other than laughter, he hears quick footsteps before something foreign touches his hands. Softly curls around them, and that familiar scent from her room fills his nostrils. The towel falls away from his eyes; now only partially covering his face, and he sees Lightning's pinker hands enveloping his own - as he is - in the paused action of peeling a carrot. His body freezes as his face heats up, and he knows he has gone rosy red. Before stammering something - anything, she continues,"I'll prepare the vegetables, get started with the stove," she orders, with a mischievously sturdy voice. "Oh, and drying yourself."

Hope lets go of the peeler and carrot as Lightning easily takes hold of them. She pushes him aside; Hope dazed and feeling like a slave of the heart. Shocked, totally without bearing and compliant to its holder. As he finally snaps out of the daze, he finds himself towel in hand, watching Lightning do his initial task with mild satisfaction written on her face. Oh, how he wants to hug her hard for that. He drapes the towel over his hair, quickly dries it, and before his intentions are made clear to her, Lightning casually points a finger towards the stove without glancing back.

"Stove," she orders him again.

There, he finds himself unsure of what he is actually supposed to do. Of why he was there... Of why anything was, really.

Tuning into his warrior senses and formulating the cooking plan, his gears start turning again. He grabs a clean pot sitting on the stove and turns towards the sink; glancing at a preoccupied Lightning before switching on the tap in front of him. He turns on the gas and fire as the water fills the pot, and he hears Lightning speak and unbusies himself.

"How do you want these vegetables cut?" she asks, almost finished peeling all of them.

"Large. Maybe in halves, please," Hope answers with a smile, before turning towards the refrigerator and grabbing the last ingredient.

"Umm..." she starts strangely. Hope turns his head towards her. "After you've readied the pot would you... show me how to cut this vegetable?"

Hope looks over to the chopping board and sees that what she has pinned down is a carrot. He raises a brow, and Lightning seeing this quickly pushes it off the chopping board and places the more strange-looking ingredient in front of her.

"Please?" she continues unabashedly, following this up with a habitual, piercing glare.

Hope walks over to her and offers his hand. She gently drops the peeler into the palm of his hand, and as this happens Hope realises that he actually needs a knife. "Nope, don't need this," he places it beside the chopping board. He bends his knees and manoeuvres around a rigid Lightning, and straightens finding that the drawer of knives is blocked by her. "Move for me?" he looks down and asks her, with what he believes to be charm.

"No."

At her reply, Hope is made to fall on his behind only to prevent his momentum from falling on her. He is shocked, embarrassed, yet more confused than anything else. "What, why?"

"I said no," she glares down at him. The only betraying feature that doesn't send Hope into a spiral of despair is that astray, purposeful curl of her lip. She is playing with him. Again, Hope admits. She had always been playing with him. "Make me move," she urges him. His eyes widen.

He knew now.

It seemed like a whole day in Hope's mind for the mechanisms of his next reply to form, but in reality only some tens of milliseconds of silence was all they needed to brave.

"No, you don't need to move," he chuckles darkly. Oh, it was now or never.

He locks onto those hardened, questioning eyes as he stands - the one action effectively putting him closer to her. He notices the widening of her eyes, and the expression that now and before seemed to invite him. He places a hand on the counter to steady - to support himself - bumping the chopping board in the process and allowing a carrot to roll off the table. To him, it was just one of those things that usually happened in moments like this.

He refuses to decline his heart's desire again out of fear - out of uncertainty, and look at the truth standing right in front of him. Peering into the depths of her eyes, his initial joking demeanour loses its legs.

He stares into her, and she stares into him. She was his truth, the one he wanted to see again after all these years away from home. The object of all his fantasies. The person whom he cares so much about, that it scares him... He slowly raises his hands to her, and being accepted easily; gently places the slender ivory on her cheek, and shoulder.

"Light..." he blinks, blocking whatever he had wanted to say to her. He could feel her nervous reaction to this. He doesn't want to filter his words now. No, not now. He will tell her everything.

"What?" she urges him, her lips twitching.

"Do you... see me as a romantic partner?" Hope grimaces at how his words came out. Could I be any less romantic than that, he internalises darkly - yet hopefully aware of a possible exaggeration. Suddenly, the pinkette swats his hands away. Hope's heart stops.

"Hope..." she seems furious to him. "Of course I see you that way! Who... Who wouldn't? And why do you think I've been trying to get you to jump all over me this past half hour or so? I even read this damn women's magazine and bought the stupid perfume!"

"...You what?" Hope mouths. Feeling incredibly happy, dumbfounded, and yet turned on at the revelation.

Lightning's complexion gets many hues redder, and he realises the mixture of his emotions must be vividly showing on his face. She speaks on, "How else am I supposed to get your attention, without - you know - dumbing down these emotions, and making you feel uncomfortable... I know you're a sensitive guy, and I know I'm not what people would call sensitive... But I do really care about how you feel, Hope. And... you know what, parts of you are more stubborn than a behemoth at times, even more stubborn than that blonde idiot."

Hope notices how serious she is, by the fact that she isn't even crossing her arms. She is opening up to him, and showing a vulnerable side to her that he thinks no one in her life has seen. "Light..." He then laughs despite all of this. "You were provoking me into making the first move?"

"Yeah," she laughs with him. "I guess I was."

Hope remembers the provoking training they underwent back when they were still fugitives, held outside the Vallis Media. Fang instructed it, and Snow did too - involuntarily one might add - since he possessed the uncanny knack for it. Something about that trademark optimism of his luring the most horrible, scariest creatures of Gran Pulse to him. It was an offhand comment like that by Fang that sent all the ex-l'Cie on the ground, clenching their stomachs with laughter. The first one down was Lightning, and it didn't take long for the others, Snow included. It was one of the funnier memories of their adventure together. Maybe the funniest.

To him, it feels like they shared that same memory just now. She now looks into his eyes, and all he can feel is warmth coming from them. A reflection of how he had felt towards her, especially in these past two months. In his mind, they really were a great pair - full of experiences together and with their eyes set on the future.

Hope laughs again, elated and still quite not believing this. He thinks about what to say to her now, and remembers his earlier question. "Well, it looks like you've succeeded."

Hope closes the distance between them, and he could see the full tenderness of her face. He didn't have to follow up his stupid plan. She broke that final wall between them. It wasn't some looming response, but was purely an opportunity, which she pushed him into taking. There was nothing right about having everything right after all.

Hope laughs at what comes next. "Although... Light. I could do with a little more provoking, just to be sure that that was your intention," he says as his smirk lingers, curious as to where she will take this. Perfect, now he was provoking her. Lightning couldn't believe this; understood to him by the roll of her eyes.

"Let's see what you got!" Lightning suddenly grabs Hope's shirt, pulls him in a twist, and their bodies touch. Hope's eyes widen in surprise as their lips had almost touched. Now, it was about time he took that initiative.

"Light, I love you so much." He reaches in first, as she had already accepted him.

They kiss.


End file.
